<p>Mathmom - as the German Don Johnson once said “Kuhl bleiben” (“stay cool”) - not sure of the spelling since it wasn’t captioned.</p>
<p>There was a controversy in a Bay area school district recently over the introduction of bilingual Chinese/English classes in elementary schools. I think the problem was that it would not be offered to ALL the elementary schools in the district, so how to choose which students are advantaged.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, as every AP Stat kid knows, correlation does NOT equal causation.</p>
<p>In my international travels, I’ve noticed that the Dutch (and the Flemish speaking people in Northern Belgium) spoke English best, followed by Swedes and Icelanders. Germans can speak fairly well, but I felt that people in Western Germany were much more proficient than those in Eastern Germany; this is probably particularly true for older generations, who learned Russian in school. </p>
<p>I was raised only speaking English, but as someone who travels quite a bit and picks up on languages very easily, I’m proficient in about 3 other languages, and currently studying another. Hopefully when I study abroad…</p>
<p>Bluebayou- I don’t think you have to be an AP Stat kid to know that - just a little look at Wiki will do the trick:</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation</a></p>
<p>Anyhow, what so intrigues many academics at this point is precisely the “strong connection” eg. correlation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
After having a Dutch customer in Holland speak to me in almost perfect English I asked him why his English was so good. He responded that he thought it was probably out of necessity since so few people speak Dutch. This is true of most of the Scandinavian languages. He stated that because of their small population and thus the practical requirement to speak another language, not only did they study English in school for many years, but that many of the movies and TV programs they watch as they grow up are in English because it’s too expensive to dub for such a small population. Watching all of this media in English helped them to have a better understanding and a better accent.</p>
<p>I think Swedish and English languages have the same roots, which may contribute to the Swedes’ English fluency (apart from the fact that English is required in all Swedish schools from the earliest grade levels.)</p>
<p>I am a little leery of the “bilingual”/ “English as a Second Language” public school programs.<br>
I have two anecdotal true stories to share:</p>
<p>1)Years ago a retired teacher friend of my parents from South Texas finally quit teaching after many years when an ESL program was instituted at her school. She said a lot of indigent Mexiacan Americans were against the program because they felt it held their childern back. One farm worker said something like this to the teacher: “At school, they teach my child in Spanish so that when he grows up, he can be a farm worker like me. At home, we tell him that he must speak in English so that he can grow up to be successful and not be a farm worker.”</p>
<p>2) A man who moved to the U.S with his parents at age 15 got married in the U.S. and all his children were born in the U.S. Since his English language skills were lacking, he spoke in Spanish to his children. When it came time for his kids to go to schoool, the school district wanted to bus them to a school district with an ESL program. The problem was that the far-away school had a much worse reputation than his local school. This man was very distraught and felt at a loss on how to keep his kids in the neighborhood school. His kids spoke relatively good English because their neighborhood was integrated. Fortunately, somebody went to bat for him and his kids stayed in the local school, but I imagine there are many more in his situation.</p>
<p>I moved to this country with my family when I was 11 years old. All of us six kids (ages 12, 11, 10, 8, 6 and 2!) were thrown into a Catholic school where no one spoke Spanish…We survived and thrived. Our parents forbade us to speak English at home because they were afraid we would forget our Spanish. So now we are all happily bilingual. Fortunately I come from a background with a strong learning ethic. </p>
<p>What I think is MOST important is for parents to read to their kids (starting when they are babies) every day in whatever language they are most comfortable with. Unfortunately, the T.V. is the baby-sitter for many indigent families, and many poor kids start school without strong language skills in any language.</p>
<p>Having said all this, however, I am not against successful bilingual programs for both native speakers and non-native speakers!</p>
<p>curiousmother, great point about the importance of parents reading to their kids at early ages = also it isn’t a bad idea to read great books - classics like Dickens in English or Cervantes el Quijote in Spanish - aloud at older ages either but as you point out tv is the babysitter of choice and reading aloud is considered too old fashioned these days.</p>
<p>Another article in the NY Times on bilingual ed - this time about a NYC bilingual school, Lafayette High School in Brooklyn, that was ordered last year to begin shutting down, condemned as an educational failure. Plans for restructuring Lafayette, a school that serves 2,100 students, are slated to begin in September 2007 and entail the creation of three new schools, none will offer bilingual instruction.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/education/14education.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/education/14education.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1</a></p>
<p>“After having a Dutch customer in Holland speak to me in almost perfect English I asked him why his English was so good. He responded that he thought it was probably out of necessity since so few people speak Dutch. This is true of most of the Scandinavian languages. He stated that because of their small population and thus the practical requirement to speak another language, not only did they study English in school for many years, but that many of the movies and TV programs they watch as they grow up are in English because it’s too expensive to dub for such a small population. Watching all of this media in English helped them to have a better understanding and a better accent.”</p>
<p>Yeah, I was told much the same thing. They don’t dub their TVs, and I know that they begin to learn English at a much younger age. I was shocked, really, with how many languages the Icelanders I met were proficient in.</p>
<p>The Dutch easily speak the best English of anyone I’ve met, though, who is not a native. I did not encounted a single person who was not proficient, even among the older crowd. Not the place to go if you want a real language immersion experience, but amazing nonetheless.</p>